Abbas,
Some of us stayed off commenting on this because we could not fully
understand the law implications.You were well of because you had a
chat with the Lawyer and so knew what you were discussing.Perhaps the
Saturday meet up should be great for all of us to be debriefed on the
same and make our contributions besides making preparations for the
Kakamega pilot.
Cheers,
On 2/19/11, Abbas Mahmoud <abbasjnr(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
Am 9.2.2011 schrieb "Abbas Mahmoud"
<abbasjnr@hotmail.com>:>>Society - The
registration process is tedious, slow and requires alot of pushing. When we
register as a society, WMKE will be an amorphous institution, meaning it
can't be sued on it's own. Rather, it is the officials or trustees that can
be sued. Property/assets are registered under the trustees. The Society
should file annual returns (e.g. indicating any change in trustees).>Manuel:
What are the costs of this option?I never bothered to ask the lawyer. Due to
a Society's drawbacks, I instantly ruled it out as an option. But I'll find
out how much it costs and get back to you, nonetheless.>>Tax ExemptionAfter
getting the Certificate of registration, we should contact the Minister for
Finance and apply for tax exemption. The by-laws should clearly indicate
that we are a non-profit organisation. A petition letter should be written
to the Minister when applying for tax exemption with supporting documents
(from WMF and/or ICT Board and/or Google Kenya). Tax exemption requires
political pushing/influence -- so the duration of us getting tax exemption
could be as short as a week and as long as decades!>Manuel: Does this apply
for Trust or Society or both?It applies to both.>>Bylaws:The lawyer has
proposed some changes to the bylaws:-That we have a two-tier board
structure: The Board Of Trustees & The Executive Committee. The EC could be
in charge of funding/project proposals etc while the Board oversees and has
the final say in whatever the EC might suggest. We could have 2 board
members in the EC as well.>Manuel: hmm, I don't understand why making it so
complicated. I haven't heardof one chapter that has this kind of
construction. In contrast, normallyyou have the problem of not being able to
find enough members tocandidate. This will be even worse if you have two
committees>I think that all this is not an issue of WMKE and even if it
becomes anissue in the future it will take some years - then you can still
changethe bylaws accordingly - if your members really want that. WMDE
forinstance has still trouble finding enough members for their board
ofeight.>For now, with much less ressources, keep it stupid and simple. Try
toavoid overhead where possible.I agree that something simple and stupid is
better.
Lodewijk, Delphine and all,Thanks so much for your comments. I expected some
of the local WMKE participants to give their feedback as well...Anyway,
since we were colonized by Britain, I gave the lawyer WMUK bylaws so that he
could check out how WMUK registered. He found out that WMUK was a limited
liability company by guarantee, and told me that he'll assess our chapter
and explore the possibility of us registering as a limited liability
company.
Anyway, I don't have all the info with me right now, so to cut the long
story short, I think we should arrange a meetup with the lawyer so that we
can discuss and decide which mode of registration suits us best, whether or
not to make the changes that the lawyer proposed in the bylaws, and any
other related matters.And BTW, I promised that I'd have posted the revised
bylaws but that's not possible at the moment since apparently we have to
decide on whether we want a Society, Trust or a Limited Liability Company so
that the lawyer can redact the current bylaws to suit the mode of
registration we'd decide on. So I expect that the final bylaws will be
published after we meet and agree on the above-mentioned issues.I suggest
that we meet on Saturday 26 Feb 2011 (at iHub?).
--Abbas.
--------------------------------------
Feel free to contact me:
Abbas Mahmood
Tel: +254722215101
Facebook: abbasjnr(a)hotmail.com
Skype: abbasjnr
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